What Rousseau’s Ideas Can Teach Us about Technology, Covetousness, and Human Nature

The first crime described by the Torah, Cain’s murder of Abel, appears to be caused by jealousy. Can the reflections of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the origins of inequality, avarice, and ambition shed light on this primordial homicide? This is one of the many questions raised by Leon Kass and Russ Roberts in their discussion of the great 18th-cenutry philosopher. Most of the conversation isn’t biblical in subject matter, although the two interlocutors are both religious Jews who live in Israel. It is above all an opportunity to observe Kass, a master teacher, practicing his art. (Audio, 77 minutes. An abbreviated transcript is available here.)